Fu Xiling and Tao Zhi had known each other for many years. Even if she couldn’t claim to read her perfectly, she could guess eight or nine parts out of ten. She nodded. “Even if he’s just your ex, you’re still old classmates. And the study god lives alone now, right? No one to take care of him when he’s sick—that’s kind of pitiful. I think it’s fine if you go check on him.”

Tao Zhi was completely persuaded by her flawless logic.

After a two-second pause, she said seriously, “I think you’re right.”

Even as she said that, she rushed into the bathroom to wash off the rest of her mask, then came out tossing off a quick, “I’m going to change.”

“…”

Fu Xiling sighed.

To avoid seeming too deliberate, Tao Zhi dressed low-key.

An off-white cashmere dress with a dark coat over it. She’d just showered, and didn’t bother with makeup or whether her complexion looked good. She went straight to the underground parking garage, pulled out her car keys, and entered Jiang Qihuai’s address into the GPS.

It was almost nine at night, and the road beneath the Second Ring overpass was jammed solid.

Half an hour later, she finally slipped past the packed traffic, parked in the residential underground lot, and followed the address An Sese had given her last time to stand before Jiang Qihuai’s front door.

His building was a mid-rise—not very tall, two elevators serving three apartments per floor, each unit’s entrance facing a different direction with a soft partition in between. The privacy was excellent.

Tao Zhi let out a sigh.

No matter how many years passed, no matter how much older she got, she was still the same person—impulsive, the kind who acted the moment she felt like doing something.

Because she wanted to see him, she came.

It seemed that after all these years, she hadn’t changed at all.

Tao Zhi stood before the keypad lock, head lowered, letting out a long sigh before leaning in to press the doorbell.

After a moment, she heard the soft ding-dong of the elevator opening, and someone slowly stepped out—probably Jiang Qihuai’s neighbor on the same floor.

She shuffled a bit closer to the wall, trying to make herself smaller in the corner, and pressed the doorbell again, frowning.

Why wasn’t he opening the door?

Had he fainted inside?

Growing anxious, Tao Zhi lifted her gaze, pressed a fingertip against the doorframe, and peered through the peephole with one squinted eye. All she could see was darkness.

The footsteps of the man who had just gotten off the elevator stopped. He probably thought her behavior looked suspicious—not like a good person at all.

Tao Zhi turned around, just about to explain, when she saw that “neighbor” leaning casually against the partition wall, eyes lowered, one brow slightly raised.

“Here to steal something?”

“…”

Tao Zhi opened her mouth, pressed a finger against the door, and pointed inward. “You weren’t home?”

Jiang Qihuai straightened up and walked over. “Why would I be home?”

“Aren’t you sick? Working from home?”

“Hmm?” Jiang Qihuai lifted his hand to light up the keypad, pressing in the digits one by one. When he finished the last number, he turned his head slightly, voice calm. “So, there’s a little spy of yours in my office?”

Tao Zhi’s heart gave a jolt. She froze, then guiltily looked away.

The door gave two beeps and unlocked. Jiang Qihuai pulled it open and stepped aside. “Come in.”

Seeing that he didn’t press the issue, Tao Zhi let out a quiet breath of relief and entered.

His new home was nothing like his old one.

The decor was clean and bright. The open kitchen was spacious; the dining table was no longer crammed awkwardly by the door where one could barely stand. The living room was wide, and the wall in front of the sofa and coffee table didn’t hold a TV—just two tall bookshelves lined up neatly. Beside them, near the floor-to-ceiling window, stood a single lazy chair with a small square wooden table next to it. On the table sat a set of Chinese chess pieces.

The game hadn’t been finished—the chariot had already crossed the river, the cannon aimed squarely in the middle. The black side was in check.

Tao Zhi lowered her gaze, staring at the board, lost in thought. In a daze, she seemed to see once again an old man with white hair sitting in that same chair by the window, reading glasses perched on his nose, a book in hand, smiling with eyes curved as he said with ease, “Think it over now. If you move your cannon, I’ll jump my horse.”

She quickly dropped her eyes, rubbed the tip of her sore nose, pulled her gaze from the board, and turned around.

Jiang Qihuai had already taken off his coat. He went to the kitchen, opened the fridge, took something out, then washed his hands at the sink. The fabric of his shirt shifted with the movement, faintly tracing the lines of his bones and muscles.

How did this look like someone with a forty-degree fever?

Tao Zhi pulled out her phone and sent Lin Suyan a message:

[Tao Zhi]: Didn’t you say your boss has a forty-degree fever and is working from home?

[Lin Suyan]: Yeah.

Tao Zhi tilted her head, giving Jiang Qihuai another once-over from top to bottom.

[Tao Zhi]: He looks completely fine.

[Lin Suyan]: ?

[Tao Zhi]: ?

[Lin Suyan]: Who are you talking about?

[Tao Zhi]: I mean your director.

[Lin Suyan]: ?

[Lin Suyan]: I said our team leader.

Tao Zhi: “…”

How many bosses do you have? And you’re both finance majors who studied abroad—how come your position’s so low??

[Lin Suyan]: But wait—why do you know our director? Weren’t you the one who called him Quasimodo before? Said he weighed two hundred pounds?

Tao Zhi calmly tapped his profile picture, selected Mute Conversation, exited WeChat, and locked her screen.

Just as she finished that whole sequence, Jiang Qihuai came out of the kitchen holding a plate of freshly washed strawberries.

Tao Zhi froze, head slightly lowered.

In the glass fruit plate, the strawberries were plump and bright red, each one with its stem neatly removed. She watched droplets of water roll down the pointed red surface and drop into the plate, mumbling softly, “Why do you always have strawberries at home?”

“Coincidence,” Jiang Qihuai said, setting the plate on the coffee table and glancing sideways. “Have you eaten dinner?”

Tao Zhi nodded honestly. “Didn’t you?”

“No, just got off work.” Jiang Qihuai turned back into the kitchen, took out a bundle of noodles from the fridge, grabbed a few tomatoes and eggs, and started preparing a simple bowl of tomato and egg noodles.

Tao Zhi obediently sat on the sofa and ate two strawberries. Then, restless, she bit into another one and wandered into the kitchen, craning her neck to peek into his pot.

Even though it was just plain egg noodles with no meat at all, the aroma was rich enough to make her nose twitch.

With the strawberry still in her mouth, she pointed at the bubbling pot, her voice muffled as she gave an order, “3821, I want some too. Make me a bowl.”

Jiang Qihuai turned his head.

Her face was close—very close. She wasn’t wearing makeup tonight, her fair, clean skin delicate like a peeled boiled egg. Her eyes were dark, her lashes clearly defined.

She had a strawberry half-bitten between her lips, faint red juice staining her soft mouth. The pointed tip of the strawberry, not yet swallowed, peeked shyly between her teeth.

Jiang Qihuai’s gaze landed on that strawberry tip and lingered for a moment. His sharp Adam’s apple moved involuntarily.

He quickly looked down, averting his eyes. “Behave. Go wait outside.”

Tao Zhi was driven out of the kitchen, pouting in confusion, not sure what she’d done wrong.

She swallowed the strawberry and wandered back into the living room.

His apartment wasn’t large, but the layout was good and the decor comfortable. Down the hall from the living room, the first door on the right was the bedroom.

The door was open, the lamp by the bed still on. Tao Zhi didn’t go in—she only stood at the doorway, intending to close the door for him. Her hand rested on the doorknob, and she glanced inside casually.

It was a simple room. Without a desk, it looked cleaner than his high school room. The dark wall was bare except for a single photo hanging at the head of the bed.

Tao Zhi froze when she saw it.

Her hand stayed on the doorknob, her whole body still.

It was a small, ordinary photo of a seaside sunset—one of her works from the first private domestic photography auction she’d ever attended.

Because it was too plain, no one had shown any interest in it at the time.

Even if it looked ordinary—no matter how many years had passed—because it was her own work, Tao Zhi recognized it at a glance.

In the photo, the sunset clouds burned crimson, like someone had squeezed a whole bottle of ketchup across the sky. Waves rolled up fine sand and washed onto the shore. At the very edge of the frame, a slender, fair foot stretched into view, toes half-buried in wet sand, playfully stepping into a thin sheet of seawater.

That was her foot.

And this photo should, by all rights, be in the hands of the only person who’d been willing to buy her work at that private auction years ago.